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COWPOKE(1) General Commands Manual COWPOKE(1)

NAME
cowpoke - Build a Debian source package in a remote cowbuilder instance

SYNOPSIS
cowpoke [options] packagename.dsc

DESCRIPTION
Uploads a Debian source package to a cowbuilder host and builds it, optionally also signing
and uploading the result to an incoming queue.

OPTIONS
The following options are available:

--arch=architecture
Specify the Debian architecture(s) to build for. A space separated list of architec‐
tures may be used to build for all of them in a single pass. Valid arch names are
those returned by dpkg-architecture(1) for DEB_BUILD_ARCH.

--dist=distribution
Specify the Debian distribution(s) to build for. A space separated list of distribu‐
tions may be used to build for all of them in a single pass. Either codenames (such
as sid, or squeeze) or distribution names (such as unstable, or experimental) may be
used, but you should usually stick to using one or the other consistently as this name
may be used in file paths and to locate old packages for comparison reporting.

It is now also possible to use locally defined names with this option, when used in
conjunction with the BASE_DIST option in a configuration file. This permits the main‐
tenance and use of specially configured build chroots, which can source package depen‐
dencies from the backports archives or a local repository, or have other unusual con‐
figuration options set, without polluting the chroots you use for clean package builds
intended for upload to the main repositories. See the description of BASE_DIST below.

--buildd=host
Specify the remote host to build on.

--buildd-user=name
Specify the remote user to build as.

--create
Create the remote cowbuilder root if it does not already exist. If this option is not
passed it is an error for the specified --dist or --arch to not have an existing cow‐‐
builder root in the expected location.

The --buildd-user must have permission to create the RESULT_DIR on the build host, or
an admin with the necessary permission must first create it and give that user (or
some group they are in) write access to it, for this option to succeed.

--return=[path]
Copy results of the build to path. If path is not specified, then return them to the
current directory. The given path must exist, it will not be created.

--no-return
Do not copy results of the build to RETURN_DIR (overriding a path set for it in the
configuration files).

--dpkg-opts='opt1 opt2 ...'
Specify additional options to be passed to dpkg-buildpackage(1). Multiple options are
delimited with spaces. This will override any options specified in DEBBUILDOPTS in
the build host's pbuilderrc.

--create-opts='cowbuilder option'
Specify additional arguments to be passed verbatim to cowbuilder when a chroot is
first created (using the --create option above). If multiple arguments need to be
passed, this option should be specified separately for each of them.

E.g., --create-opts "--othermirror" --create-opts "deb http:// ..."

This option will override any CREATE_OPTS specified for a chroot in the cowpoke con‐
figuration files.

--update-opts='cowbuilder option'
Specify additional arguments to be passed verbatim to cowbuilder if the base of the
chroot is updated. If multiple arguments need to be passed, this option should be
specified separately for each of them.

This option will override any UPDATE_OPTS specified for a chroot in the cowpoke con‐
figuration files.

--build-opts='cowbuilder option'
Specify additional arguments to be passed verbatim to cowbuilder when a package build
is performed. If multiple arguments need to be passed, this option should be speci‐
fied separately for each of them.

This option will override any BUILD_OPTS specified for a chroot in the cowpoke config‐
uration files.

--sign=keyid
Specify the key to sign packages with. This will override any SIGN_KEYID specified
for a chroot in the cowpoke configuration files.

--upload=queue
Specify the dput queue to upload signed packages to. This will override any UP‐‐
LOAD_QUEUE specified for a chroot in the cowpoke configuration files.

--help Display a brief summary of the available options and current configuration.

--version
Display the current version information.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
When cowpoke is run the following configuration options are read from global, per-user, and
per-project configuration files if present. File paths may be absolute or relative, the lat‐
ter being relative to the BUILDD_USER's home directory. Since the paths are typically quoted
when used, tilde expansion will not be performed on them.

Global defaults
These apply to every arch and dist in a single cowpoke invocation.

BUILDD_HOST
The network address or fqdn of the build machine where cowbuilder is configured. This
may be overridden by the --buildd command line option.

BUILDD_USER
The unprivileged user name for operations on the build machine. This defaults to the
local name of the user executing cowpoke (or to a username that is specified in your
SSH configuration for BUILDD_HOST), and may be overridden by the --buildd-user command
line option.

BUILDD_ARCH
The Debian architecture(s) to build for. This must match the DEB_BUILD_ARCH of the
build chroot being used. It defaults to the local machine architecture where cowpoke
is executed, and may be overridden by the --arch command line option. A (quoted)
space separated list of architectures may be used here to build for all of them in a
single pass.

BUILDD_DIST
The Debian distribution(s) to build for. A (quoted) space separated list of distribu‐
tions may be used to build for all of them in a single pass. This may be overridden
by the --dist command line option.

INCOMING_DIR
The directory path on the build machine where the source package will initially be
placed. This must be writable by the BUILDD_USER.

PBUILDER_BASE
The filesystem root for all pbuilder CoW and result files. Arch and dist specific
subdirectories will normally be created under this. The apt cache and temporary build
directory will also be located under this path.

SIGN_KEYID
If this option is set, it is expected to contain the gpg key ID to pass to debsign(1)
if the packages are to be remotely signed. You will be prompted to confirm whether
you wish to sign the packages after all builds are complete. If this option is unset
or an empty string, no attempt to sign packages will be made. It may be overridden on
an arch and dist specific basis using the arch_dist_SIGN_KEYID option described below,
or per-invocation with the --sign command line option.

UPLOAD_QUEUE
If this option is set, it is expected to contain a 'host' specification for dput(1)
which will be used to upload them after they are signed. You will be prompted to con‐
firm whether you wish to upload the packages after they are signed. If this option is
unset or an empty string, no attempt to upload packages will be made. If SIGN_KEYID
is not set, this option will be ignored entirely. It may be overridden on an arch and
dist specific basis using the arch_dist_UPLOAD_QUEUE option described below, or per-
invocation with the --upload command line option.

BUILDD_ROOTCMD
The command to use to gain root privileges on the remote build machine. If unset the
default is sudo(8). This is only required to invoke cowbuilder and allow it to enter
its chroot, so you may restrict this user to only being able to run that command with
escalated privileges. Something like this in sudoers will enable invoking cowbuilder
without an additional password entry required:

youruser ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/cowbuilder

Alternatively you could use SSH with a forwarded key, or whatever other mechanism
suits your local access policy. Using su -c isn't really suitable here due to its
quoting requirements being somewhat different to the rest.

DEBOOTSTRAP
The utility to use when creating a new build root. Alternatives are debootstrap or
cdebootstrap.

RETURN_DIR
If set, package files resulting from the build will be copied to the path (local or
remote) that this is set to, after the build completes. The path must exist, it will
not be created. This option is unset by default and can be overridden with --return
or --no-return.

Arch and dist specific options
These are variables of the form: $arch_$dist_VAR which apply only for a particular target
arch/dist build.

arch_dist_RESULT_DIR
The directory path on the build machine where the resulting packages (source and bi‐
nary) will be found, and where older versions of the package that were built previ‐
ously may be found. If any such older packages exist, debdiff will be used to compare
the new package with the previous version after the build is complete, and the result
will be included in the build log. Files in it must be readable by the BUILDD_USER
for sanity checking with lintian(1) and debdiff(1), and for upload with dput(1). If
this option is not specified for some arch and dist combination then it will default
to $PBUILDER_BASE/$arch/$dist/result

arch_dist_BASE_PATH
The directory where the CoW master files are to be found (or created if the --create
command line option was passed). If this option is not specified for some arch or
dist then it will default to $PBUILDER_BASE/$arch/$dist/base.cow

arch_dist_BASE_DIST
The code name to pass as the --distribution option for cowbuilder instead of dist.
This is necessary when dist is a locally significant name assigned to some specially
configured build chroot, such as 'wheezy_backports', and not the formal suite name of
a distro release known to debootstrap. This option cannot be overridden on the com‐
mand line, since it would rarely, if ever, make any sense to change it for individual
invocations of cowpoke. If this option is not specified for an arch and dist combina‐
tion then it will default to dist.

arch_dist_CREATE_OPTS
A bash array containing additional options to pass verbatim to cowbuilder when this
chroot is created for the first time (using the --create option). This is useful when
options like --othermirror are wanted to create specialised chroot configurations such
as 'wheezy_backports'. By default this is unset. All values set in it will be over‐
ridden if the --create-opts option is passed on the command line.

Each element in this array corresponds to a single argument (in the ARGV sense) that
will be passed to cowbuilder. This ensures that arguments which may contain white‐
space or have strange quoting requirements or other special characters will not be
mangled before they get to cowbuilder.

Bash arrays are initialised using the following form:

OPTS=( "arg1" "arg 2" "--option" "value" "--opt=val" "etc. etc." )

arch_dist_UPDATE_OPTS
A bash array containing additional options to pass verbatim to cowbuilder each time
the base of this chroot is updated. It behaves similarly to the CREATE_OPTS option
above, except for acting when the chroot is updated.

arch_dist_BUILD_OPTS
A bash array containing additional options to pass verbatim to cowbuilder each time a
package build is performed in this chroot. This is useful when you want to use some
option like --twice which cowpoke does not directly need to care about. It otherwise
behaves similarly to UPDATE_OPTS above except that it acts during the build phase of
cowbuilder.

arch_dist_SIGN_KEYID
An optional arch and dist specific override for the global SIGN_KEYID option.

arch_dist_UPLOAD_QUEUE
An optional arch and dist specific override for the global UPLOAD_QUEUE option.

CONFIGURATION FILES
/etc/cowpoke.conf
Global configuration options. Will override hardcoded defaults.

~/.cowpoke
Per-user configuration options. Will override any global configuration.

.cowpoke
Per-project configuration options. Will override any per-user or global configuration
if cowpoke is called from the directory where they exist.

If the environment variable COWPOKE_CONF is set, it specifies an additional configura‐
tion file which will override all of those above. Options specified explicitly on the
command line override all configuration files.

COWBUILDER CONFIGURATION
There is nothing particularly special required to configure a cowbuilder instance for use
with cowpoke. Simply create them in the flavour you require with `cowbuilder --create` ac‐
cording to the cowbuilder documentation, then configure cowpoke with the user, arch, and path
information required to access it, on the machines you wish to invoke it from (or alterna‐
tively configure cowpoke with the path, arch and distribution information and pass the --cre‐‐
ate option to it on the first invocation). The build host running cowbuilder does not re‐
quire cowpoke installed locally.

The build machine should have the lintian and devscripts packages installed for post-build
sanity checking. Upon completion, the build log and the results of automated checks will be
recorded in the INCOMING_DIR. If you wish to upload signed packages the build machine will
also need dput(1) installed and configured to use the 'host' alias specified by UPLOAD_QUEUE.
If rsync(1) is available on both the local and build machine, then it will be used to trans‐
fer the source package (this may save on some transfers of the orig.tar.* when building sub‐
sequent Debian revisions).

The user executing cowpoke must have SSH access to the build machine as the BUILDD_USER.
That user must be able to invoke cowbuilder as root by using the BUILDD_ROOTCMD. Signing
keys are not required to be installed on the build machine (and will be ignored there if they
are). If the package is signed, keys will be expected on the machine that executes cowpoke.

When cowpoke is invoked, it will first attempt to update the cowbuilder image if that has not
already been done on the same day. This is checked by the presence or absence of a cow‐
builder-$arch-$dist-update-log-$date file in the INCOMING_DIR. You may move, remove, or
touch this file if you wish the image to be updated more or less often than that. Its con‐
tents log the output of cowbuilder during the update (or creation) of the build root.

NOTES
Since cowbuilder creates a chroot, and to do that you need root, cowpoke also requires some
degree of root access. So all the horrible things that can go wrong with that may well one
day rain down upon you. cowbuilder has been known to accidentally wipe out bind-mounted
filesystems outside the chroot, and worse than that can easily happen. So be careful, keep
good backups of things you don't want to lose on your build machine, and use cowpoke to keep
all that on a machine that isn't your bleeding edge dev box with your last few hours of un‐
committed work.

SEE ALSO
cowbuilder(1), pbuilder(1), ssh-agent(1), sudoers(5)

AUTHOR
cowpoke was written by Ron <ron AT debian.org>.

April 28, 2008 COWPOKE(1)